The winter is officially here and we enjoyed a couple of snowy days this week to welcome the start of winter. We played outside in the snow all day yesterday and took in all of the beauty of the season. Watching the snowfall and looking at the snow-covered trees was enough to inspire some winter crafting.
We love working with clay and nature items. We have a collection of sticks and stones set aside for occasions just like this.
I’m sure that I have mentioned it before, but I love gingerbread. It is one of my absolute favorite things about this time of year. I look forward to baking it, smelling it, eating it and my daughter and I have fun doing arts and crafts projects inspired by it. Here are some wonderful gingerbread inspired ideas to welcome in the holiday season.
We love clay & play dough projects in our house. My daughter just can’t get enough of it. We make new dough every week, sometimes even a couple of times a week. We are just about settled into our new home, but are still missing pictures on our walls. I thought it would be fun for us to make some homemade frames together.
We started with a simple clay recipe.
2 1/2 cup of flour
1 1/4 cup of water
1 cup of salt
1 Tbsp of oil
1 Tbsp of cornstarch
Mix all the ingredients together & then knead with your hands. My daughter always loves this part. You may need to add less or more water.
Roll out your clay.
Cut a few long strips out of your dough & then cut into small squares.
Cut out a shape for your frame & then cut out the inside window. Use a photo as a template to know how big to cut your window.
Lightly wet the top of your frame. Press the squares on top until the frame is covered. Press the squares in enough so that they stick. For my frame, I etched designs in with a toothpick. Since Mother’s Day is nearing, I thought that a Mother’s Day themed frame would be a good choice. Mai chose to draw in her designs after.
Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Bake for 1 hour & then flip your frame & bake for another hour. Depending on the thickness of your frame, you might need more or less bake time. When hardened, remove from the oven & let cool.
Paint your squares with acrylics or glaze.
After the paint dried, Mai used a marker to draw in her designs. She wanted to write letters & numbers on hers.
Glue yarn or a ribbon to the back to hang & glue a picture to the back. (We used crazy glue. Let adults apply crazy glue.)
My daughter was so proud of her finished project. She asked that both be hung in her room.
Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.
We recently moved into a house that was still under renovation. Most of our belongings were in storage for months while we waited for our home to be move in ready. While unpacking our kitchen, I noticed that a lot of our food was getting close to their expiration. I had open containers of flour & oats that I wanted to use up, so this morning I made a couple of dozen oatmeal mini muffins. They were a big hit by the way. I still had a little bit more flour & oats left, so we tried our hand at oatmeal play dough.
Ingredients:
2 cup of oats
2 cup of flour
1 cup of water
1-2 tbsp honey
Food coloring optional
Directions:
Add the water to the oats and add the honey. Stir well. Mix in the flour & then knead with your hands. It may seem like a lot of flour, but keep kneading well and it will absorb. (Add extra water a tbsp at a time if needed until you reach your desired consistency)
I loved the texture of this play dough. It was very firm & moldable. My daughter of course wanted to dive right in.
I was so excited about how well it molded. I asked Mai what we should make. She said that she wanted to make a pyramid. We sliced the play dough into rectangular pieces and constructed our own pyramid.
As if the play dough wasn’t messy enough, mommy added another element of mess & made icing to bind the pieces together.
This was a great activity for both of us. While Mai constructed her towers & googly eye cookies, mommy made a little something of her own too.
Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.
*This post contains affiliate links* Some photos have been updated since original post.
My daughter has inherited a lot of hand-me-down books. We have so many that we don’t even know what we own. For a very long time, my daughter has only read a few of these books. Many just sat there collecting dust, but recently she has been diving into them all. We came across a few art books the other day. We found a few great “how to draw” tutorials and also came across a cute book filled with fingerprint crafts.
